Ostensibly a portrait of photographer Denise Bellon, focusing on the two decades between 1935 and 1955, the film leaps and backtracks, Marker-style, from subject to subject, from a family portrait of Bellon and her two daughters, Loleh and Yannick (the latter co-authored the film), to a wide-ranging history of surrealism, of the city of Paris, of French cinema and the birth of the cinémathèque, of Europe, the National Front, the Second World War and Spanish Civil War, and postwar politics and culture.

Since 1920 artist, photographer, and filmmaker Ella Bergmann-Michel lived and worked at the “Schmelz”, an old paint mill near Frankfurt on Main. With guests such as Kurt Schwitters and László Moholy-Nagy the house became an important locale for modern artists. Between 1931 and 1933 she made five documentary films that constitute a rare example of socially involved and equally artistic film. The DVD contains these five films, a documentary film about the artist and a comprehensive booklet with essays on Ella Bergmann-Michel’s films.

Agnes Varda, the acclaimed director of The Beaches of Agnes and The Gleaners and I, brings us Cinevardaphoto, a triptych of short films exploring the power and vitality of the photograph. In Ydessa, The Bears and Etc., Varda discovers a haunting exhibit of found photos, each showing a teddy bear. With Ulysses, she deconstructs a picture from her early career as a photographer. While the exuberant Salut les Cubains uses still photos to capture the spirit of the Cuban revolution’s early days.